Coalescence: Popeyes and Pappu

Today was more or less like any other day: I went to work in the morning, did my work, and came back home. I didn't make any plans to go anywhere after work aside from picking up some food for dinner. That being said though, I was looking forward to this meal, because I had planned to eat one of my childhood favorites. I had some pappu (dal/lentils) in the fridge which I had prepared the other day and some leftover rice/quinoa, and I was getting ready to go to Popeyes to pick up some fried chicken (spicy, of course).

The bike ride to Popeyes was pretty windy and wasn't the most exciting of rides, but the way back was surprisingly quite eventful. As I was riding back, a car next to me dropped a whole Popeyes meal literally out of nowhere. In a flash, I saw chicken and mac & cheese rolling on the pavement and I felt sad for the person who had planned to eat it. However, the driver kept driving, and since there was nothing that could be done about the grounded food, I went back on my way. Shortly thereafter, I encountered a friend from church; little did that person know that I had a box of fried chicken (spicy) concealed in my bag or that I had literally just witnessed chicken crossing the road.

Once I got home, I started to prepare my dinner. As I was doing so, I came to a realization that this meal was literally the culmination of flavors from around the world. I had basmati rice "from the foothills of the Himalayas", quinoa from Peru, pappu from Canada (made with chili powder from India), and fried chicken from Louisiana. What a time to be alive! I was quite shook that we live in an age where these food combinations are possible.

As I ate this meal, I couldn't help but think about how this coalescence of flavors related to the coalescence of different aspects of life. Just as the meal was built with foods from around the world, our daily experience is built from different parts of ourselves (physical, emotional, spiritual, relational, mental). I know that there will be days where one or more of those parts aren't feeling 100%, similar to how I don't eat fried chicken every day. That being said though, there are those days where I have a special meal and those days when life makes more sense than it did the day before. Wherever you are in your journey, I hope that you have a chance to experience not only the coalescence of flavors in food (like pappu and Popeyes), but also the coalescence of various flavors in life 💙